The Asia Pacific region experienced 34,000 distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks in the second quarter of 2016, according to Nexusguard’s Q2 2016 Threat Report – Asia-Pacific. The figure represents a 43 percent increase from the previous quarter.

Even though Network Time Protocol (NTP) attacks dominated the type of attacks in the region (90 percent), such attacks were less common in other parts of the world (46 percent).

The report also found that attack durations were longer in the Asia Pacific region as compared to global incidents, which is likely due to many scripted attack tools with set duration values.

China remains as one of the top three target countries in the region. According to Nexusguard, a Chinese target was hit 41 times over the course of about a month of constant attacks. Nexusguard researchers attributed these attacks to the malware the victim had hosted over the last two years.

The largest increase was observed in Hong Kong, accounting for a 57 percent rise in attacks.

With hackers are experimenting with new attack methodologies, and events happening in the Asia Pacific region, Nexusguard researchers expect to see a spike in DDoS attacks in the third quarter of this year.

“We expect the upward trend in the frequency of attacks to continue this year, especially with more attention on the Summer Olympics [in Brazil] and political dispute in the APAC region,” said Terrence Gareau, Chief Scientist at Nexusguard.

“And as Pokémon Go gradually launches across the Asian market, Nexusguard analysts expect attack groups will launch more public attacks. This activity increases visibility and positioning as DDoS-for-hire services, the popularity of which we noted from the consistent time durations this quarter,” he added.